If these few plain rules are observed, no corruption ought to be suspected; if any of them are violated, suspicion will attach in proportion; if all of them are violated, a corrupt motive of some kind or other will not only be suspected…
Edmund Burke
The Public Record
Edmund Burke was an Anglo-Irish writer, philosopher, and politician who is widely credited as the founder of the cultural and political philosophy of conservatism. Regarded as one of the most influential conservative thinkers and political writers of the 18th century, Burke spent the majority of his career in Great Britain and was elected as a member of Parliament (MP) from 1766 to 1794 in the House of Commons of Great Britain with the Whig Party. His writings played a significant role in influencing public views and opinions in both Great Britain and France following the French Revolution in 1789, and he remains a major figure in modern conservative circles.
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If I prove fraud and collusion with regard to public money on those right honorable gentlemen, I am not obliged to assign their motives; because no good motives can be pleaded in favor of their conduct.
Has he not stated over and over again, in his reports, the ill treatment of the Rajah of Tanjore (a branch of the royal house of the Mahrattas, every injury to whom the Mahrattas felt as offered to themselves) as a main cause of the…
His conduct, indeed, is such that he is on all occasions the standing testimony against himself.
If I did more, it might be supposed, by my anxiety to clear myself, that I had imbibed the ideas which, for obvious reasons, the right honorable gentleman wishes to have received concerning all attempts to plead the cause of the natives of…
Shall I believe that it does not enter into his heart to conceive that any person can steadily and actively interest himself in the protection of the injured and oppressed without being well paid for his service?
This horrid and unnatural instrument of extortion had been a distinguishing feature in the enormities of the Carnatic politics, that loudly called for reformation.
The use of this river is, indeed, at length given to the Rajah, and a power provided for its enjoyment at his own charge; but the means of furnishing that charge (and a mighty one it is) are wholly out off.
The means of the subsistence of mankind should be as immutable as the laws of Nature, let power and dominion take what course they may.--Observe what has been done with regard to this important concern.
They do not adapt the burden to the strength, but they estimate the strength of the bearers by the burden they impose.
But take this tribute only as a mere charge (without title, cause, or equivalent) on this people; what one step has been taken to furnish grounds for a just calculation and estimate of the proportion of the burden and the ability?
The Nabob, without military, without federal capacity, is extinguished as a potentate; but then he is carefully kept alive as an independent and sovereign power, for the purpose of rapine and extortion,--for the purpose of perpetuating the…
The Nabob of Arcot and Rajah of Tanjore have, in truth and substance, no more than a merely civil authority, held in the most entire dependence on the Company.
Speaker, you have a clear exemplification of the use of those false names and false colors which the gentlemen who have lately taken possession of India choose to lay on for the purpose of disguising their plan of oppression.
In the present case, to suppose its existence is as absurd as it is cruel and oppressive.
Such is the state to which the Company's servants have reduced that country.
Yet, in case the Company's servants should be again involved in war, or should think proper again to provoke any enemy, as in times past they have wantonly provoked all India, he is to be subjected to a new penalty.
As confessedly this prince had no share in stirring up any of the former wars, so all future wars are completely out of his power; for he has no troops whatever, and is under a stipulation not so much as to correspond with any foreign…
He has not borne witness, but the fact is, (he will not deny it,) that in the midst of war, and during the ruin and desolation of a considerable part of his territories, this prince made many very large payments.
Can any one reflect for a moment on all those claims of debt, which the minister exhausts himself in contrivances to augment with new usuries, without lifting up his hands and eyes in astonishment at the impudence both of the claim and of…
They begin by rewarding the violation of the ancient law; and then they gravely reenact provisions, of which they have given bounties for the breach.
They move in a circle, mutually producing and produced; till at length nothing of humanity is left in the government, no trace of integrity, spirit, or manliness in the people, who drag out a precarious and degraded existence under this…
Men of respectable condition, men equal to your substantial English yeomen, are daily tied up and scourged to answer the multiplied demands of various contending and contradictory titles, all issuing from one and the same source.
In consequence of this double game, all the territorial revenues have at one time or other been covered by those locusts, the English soucars.
Thus their false moderation, and their affected purity, by the natural operation of everything false and everything affected, becomes pander and bawd to the unbridled debauchery and licentious lewdness of usury and extortion.
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